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What, no hard-hitting, on-the-scene reportage by the NY Times today on how Metropolitan Museum visitors were handling yesterday's increase of the recommended admission fee to $20? Where's Randy Kennedy when we need him?!? … [Read more...] about NY Times Drops the Ball

Scott Gutterman, deputy director of the Neue Galerie, New York, told me last week that the long wait for the Neue Galerie's public posting of its Nazi-era provenance research was partly due to its desire to do it right: "We will create a provenance website above and beyond other websites," he promised. But the uncorrected draft version, seen by clicking a link made privately … [Read more...] about Neue Galerie’s Online Provenance Prototype: Worth the Wait?

Last night's Cézanne in Provence on PBS was, in a word, splendid. The National Gallery's curator, Philip Conisbee, though uncredited in the show's publicity, was (after Cézanne's art) the chief attraction, radiating quiet authority as he used the artist's biography and arcadian surroundings to illuminate the art. The camerawork was also deft, dissolving from actual provençal … [Read more...] about Are Museums Taboo on TV?

Tonight, viewers of PBS stations can finally get to see the documentary "Cézanne in Provence," inspired by the eponymous exhibition at the National Gallery, Washington. But if the television show whets your appetite to see the museum show, you're probably out of luck: It closed in Washington on May 7. If money's no object, though, you can still catch it at the Musée Granet in … [Read more...] about Better Late than Never: “Cézanne in Provence” on PBS

ArtsJournal readers who are new to CultureGrrl will have to excuse to my penchant for occasionally dishing in Yiddish. ("Overcome with emotion" is a rough translation of the "V" word, above.) What I'm "verklempt" about is my worry over whether poor Adele has finally found safe haven. (CultureGrrl has already klopped the Klimt here, here and here.) Maria Altmann, one of the … [Read more...] about Verklempt Over Klimt

A big welcome to CultureGrrl's first subscriber, Jim of Chadds Ford (no relation to the Wyeth clan, as far as I can tell). As promised, Jim gets a free autographed copy of my book, The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf), And Jim, you didn't know this, but as my Number One supporter, you also get a free kiss from Lee of Fort Lee, next time you're in the area. (You KNOW the … [Read more...] about CultureGrrl’s First Subscriber!

Museums generally decline to be showcases for privately owned artworks that are known to be headed to market. Auction houses, not museums, are the appropriate venue for presale exhibitions. But one of the works featured in the National Gallery of London's current exhibition, Rebels and Martyrs, is none other than Andrew Lloyd Webber's Picasso, "Angel Fernández de Soto," 1903, … [Read more...] about Lloyd Webber’s Presale Exhibition at London’s National Gallery

Regarding the antiquities agreement between Italy and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the article that the Boston Globe has posted on its website today provides many more details than the Globe article I linked to last night. (ArtsJournal posted the shorter version.) My contribution to this story will be to translate for you (and raise some questions about) the brief text of … [Read more...] about The Boston MFA’s Accord with Italy

Check out Geoff Edger's post on the website of the Boston Globe! Do you think I should dye my hair before the modeling agencies call? But, more seriously, check out his big news on the antiquities front, to be published in tomorrow's paper. … [Read more...] about CultureGrrl is a Blogging Pin-up!

The Tate Modern has announced many uses for its planned new $397-million Herzog & de Meuron expansion, but the chief raison d'être seems to be the overcrowding of the original facility, built for 1.8 million annual visitors but now thronged by 4 million. Why hasn't the Uffizi thought of this solution? My daughter Joyce, who rarely sets foot in an art museum at home (where did I … [Read more...] about Crowd Control, European Style

An art blogger has questioned my failure to identify Rob Krulak, a CultureGrrl reader who contributed a BlogBack about my Gary Tinterow posts. Krulak didn't identify himself in his e-mail, but now freely permits me to say that he is, indeed, senior development officer for campaign and institutional gifts at the Brooklyn Museum. Until he got outted in the blogosphere, I myself … [Read more...] about BlogBack Reader Outted

Having just criticized the Getty for antiquities secrecy, I should hasten to add that is has now posted on its website a whole section on Governance , including its 199-page tax return, names and biographies of its trustees and top staff, compensation of its highest-paid employees, policies (including conflict of interest), and its annual report. Other museums, please copy. … [Read more...] about The Getty Gets Transparent

Here is one more suggestion for the websites of museums that want to give more than lip-service to the idea of operating with greater transparency. (My other suggestions for museum websites are here and here): Museums should consider researching the provenance of antiquities in their collections and posting works with dubious histories on their websites. The rationale (as I … [Read more...] about Museums’ Tangled Web—Part III

Reader John Heghinian responds to Museums' Tangled Web---Part II: It's been interesting to read your opinions of deaccessioning, even though I don't quite agree. Would you consider amending your "radically conservative proposal" to have institutions include the amount of money they believe they could gain by a given sale? If you wanted to demand they also describe what they … [Read more...] about BlogBack: The Deaccessioning Dilemma